There was tons of information on the web about Phil Bennett. He’d been the chief financial officer of a huge pharmaceutical company until an even bigger European conglomerate had purchased it a year before. I read enough to realize the Bennetts were rich. Not comfortably retired, like the Caswells, but truly wealthy. Deborah had told me they were getting away to Palm Beach for a couple of months. What she hadn’t said was that they owned a house there and an apartment in a New York City co-op building in addition to their Busman’s Harbor “summer cottage.” They’d sold their house in Greenwich, Connecticut, before they’d moved up the harbor, and the listing photos were still available online. The house looked like a palace and was beautifully decorated, as I would have expected.
I thought I’d find a website for Deborah Bennett’s interior decorating business. What little people seemed to know about her always included the information that she was a “professional” interior designer. But there was scant mention of her on the web, and I wondered if all the homes she decorated were her own.
I looked briefly for information about the Walkers, and what I found confirmed what I already knew. The art supplies shop had a terrible website. It looked like someone had persuaded Barry he needed a “web presence” and he’d gone along, but with no idea what he was trying to accomplish. The local paper, which had back issues available online only for the past five years, told me that Barry had been president of the Chamber of Commerce two years ago. Fran was active in the Congregational Church. Nothing I hadn’t known. Nothing that connected them to the Bennetts or the Caswells.
A Sheila Smith had recently retired after seventeen years as a federal judge for the Southern District of New York, presiding over civil cases. That fit with what she’d said about moving from Westchester County. I found a formal photograph of her in her judge’s robes, her face peering out under her bangs, stolid and grim. When I’d sat in front of her, I’d certainly felt judged. I was glad I’d never been involved in a case that would have brought me before her bench.
I searched for “Michael Smith,” but even adding “Mamaroneck,” it was hopeless. The name was too common to yield any reliable search results.
I sat back to consider what I knew. Four couples, linked by age. All had lived in different places in the northeast United States. The Bennetts were rich and the Caswells well off. The Walkers appeared to struggle financially. I couldn’t begin to guess about the Smiths. I assumed they were comfortable, though with our short tourist season and the amount of fixing up the Fogged Inn had required, I doubted they were making any money as B&B owners.
No obvious connection. But I was sure there had to be one. I just had to find it.
Chapter 14
I locked up the restaurant and headed to Mom’s. Livvie and Page were already there when I arrived, and the place smelled like heaven. Livvie’s meatloaf was in the oven along with baked potatoes, and broccoli was cut and ready to go in the pot.
I gave my pregnant sister a hug. “Where’s Sonny?”
“Beat. I told him I’d bring a plate of food home for him.”
Most of the lobster boats in Busman’s Harbor were out of the water, tucked away in the lobsterman’s side yards, but Livvie’s husband, Sonny, was still hard at work every day on his father’s boat, the Abby. Lobster prices rose ever higher in the winter, due to low supply and high demand, especially from France, where Maine lobster had become a traditional part of the Christmas Eve meal. Bard, Sonny’s dad, was recovering from rotator cuff surgery and Sonny’s younger brother was in treatment for an addiction to painkillers. So it was left to Sonny, despite an inquiry of his own, to haul traps until the weather finally forced the Abby out of the water sometime after the New Year.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Help Page with the salad,” Livvie answered.
I sat down at the kitchen table next to my soon-to-be ten-year-old niece, who took a sharp knife to some carrots like a pro.
“How’s school?” I asked.
“Same as when you asked me on Sunday. And on Saturday. And on Thanksgiving Day before that.”
What else are you supposed to ask kids? “So you would say it’s—”
“—the same. Yes, it is.” Page turned back to her chopping, humming happily as she did.
Mom came through the swinging door from the dining room. “Hullo, Julia.”
In spite of the schedule she’d kept lately, Mom looked great. Her petite frame was encased in a red cashmere sweater and a pair of navy slacks. Her shortish, thick blond hair was well cut, and she wore just a hint of makeup. This was quite a turnaround for my mother, who’d gone through five rough years after my father’s death. Her look, which had always been casual, had declined from “carefree” to “don’t care” during the years of her mourning. The “little job” at Linens and Pantries agreed with her.
The Snugg sisters arrived, taking off layers of coats and scarves in the front hall. Livvie took the meatloaf out of the oven, and we gathered at the table.
“Delicious,” Vee pronounced after her first bite of meatloaf, some of the roses returning to her cheeks. “Just like I taught you.”
Livvie had learned to cook in self-defense after enduring a decade of my mother’s attempts to turn herself from a privileged, motherless girl raised by a revolving-door series of housekeepers into a Yankee housewife. One of the places Livvie learned her skills was in Vee’s kitchen, and Vee’s meatloaf was one of our favorites.